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POETRY IN THE PLAGUE YEAR

Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak 2020

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Sheila Lockhart

Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, Scotland

 

Sheila Lockhart is a retired social worker and lives on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands with her partner and two Icelandic horses, tending her garden and writing poetry.  She is a member of Ross-shire Writers and the Moniack Mhor writers’ group and has had work published by Northwords NowArachne Press, Nine Muses Poetry, Twelve Rivers (Suffolk Poetry Society), the StAnza Poetry Map of Scotland, The Writers’ Cafe and the Ekphrastic Review.

 

Poem written on 23rd March 2020

 

Fenceless

 

yesterday strong men came

ripped out the rotten fence

that was left to sway too long 

gap-toothed and crumbling 

 

there was lively language

splintering and slashing 

with heavy spades 

 

by day’s end 

they’d set new posts 

pointing to the sky 

dark silhouettes 

against its apricot 

opalescence

 

left undefended 

for one exhilarating night 

our garden 

knew no boundaries

 

wind roared across the lawn

rabbits jigged

and the old fox sleuthed 

back and forth 

with his smuggled goods

 

the mole slipped 

with velvet ease

through the black turned soil 

worms shone like jewels

on every side 

 

wildness flowed all night

through our dreams

swept us up dizzied 

by absence of horizons 

 

soon after dawn

the hammering resumed 

each time we looked 

a few more feet 

of carefully measured slats 

obscured the view

 

the wilderness drew back 

step by step 

rabbits retreated 

to their holes 

and the mole 

deafened 

dug deeper 

down her labyrinth 

leaving a trail of crumbs